A liquid crystal panel is formed by oppositely disposing (1) a lower substrate having an aligning layer, a picture element electrode, a thin layer transistor, an MTM forming element and matrix wiring, and (2) an upper substrate having an alignment layer, an electrode and a color filter, with a liquid crystal inserted between the lower and upper substrates. In order to define the thickness of the liquid crystal layer, a method which comprises dispersing transparent cylindrical or granular fine spacers on either of the substrates (or on both substrates in some cases) is known in the art. The substrates are then assembled to interpose the spacers therebetween. A conventional method of forming a spacer is to scatter glass beads or the like. In this method, however, it is difficult to uniformly scatter the spacers. This results in a difference in spacer density within the plane, to produce irregular gaps between the substrate and cause uneven displays.
JP-A-3-89320 (the term "JP-A" as used herein means an unexamined published Japanese patent application) and JP-A-5-11256 disclose methods of forming a spacer in a desired place by a photolithography process using a photopolymerizable resin. However, these methods can damage the alignment layer during formation of the photopolymerizable resin layer and during the photolithographic step at which a spacer contacts the aligning layer.
JP-A-2-210329 discloses a method in which a photopolymer shut is laminated on a substrate provided with an alignment layer, the photopolymer sheet is imagewise exposed and developed to form spacer dots and then an aligning treatment is carried out.
However, this known method has caused some problems, that is, (1) since the spacer dots are formed on a liquid crystal substrate, incomplete formation of the spacer dots makes the whole liquid crystal substrate unusable and results in the reduction of yield of the liquid crystal substrate itself and (2) since an aligning treatment is carried out after the formation of the spacer dots, the spacer dots formed fall out during the aligning treatment and the aligning treatment cannot sufficiently be carried out around the spacer dots in the alignment layer. In the prior art a photoresist layer is directly coated onto the substrate or alignment layer, whereas in the present invention the photoresist is coated onto a temporary support. In the prior art, the coated alignment layer is subjected to exposure and development, whereas in the method of the present invention all photolithography operations are carried out using the coated temporary support.